Security Council Program
NGO Working Group
The United Nations Charter charges the Security Council with primary responsibility for international peace and security. Today, in a world wracked by civil wars and complex crises, the Council is more active and important than ever. But the Council is prone to power-politics, secret deals and closed-door discussions. Humanity needs NGO advocates and watchdogs to protect human interests and to pomote effective and just solutions in the Council's policy process.
The NGO Working Group on the Security Council, under GPF leadership, provides a new and effective vehicle for NGO advocacy with Council members. Since 1997, Global Policy Forum has organized the NGO Working Group, which enables NGOs to meet with Security Council ambassadors and other UN officials on a very regular basis. GPF Director James Paul is the Chair of the NGO Working Group and GPF provides the organizational support for the process.
The NGO Working Group has thirty members including Amnesty International, Médecins sans Frontií¨res, Oxfam, Saferworld, Peace Action, the Hague Appeal for Peace, Human Rights Watch, Worldwatch Institute, the International Women's Tribune Center, and the Quaker UN Office.
This NGO dialogue enables NGOs to monitor closely the Council's work and it has succeeded in bringing new thinking into the Council's deliberations. It helps focus Council attention on the human dimension of emergencies and lobbies for more speedy Council action to address crises. Many participating NGOs have staff and programs located in emergency areas and they have vital information and analysis to offer Council members.
Working Group Meetings and Contacts
GPF organized an unprecedented number of meetings of the NGO Working Group in 1999, including thirty-two meetings with thirteen different Council delegations, twenty-seven of which were with the Permanent Representative (ambassador). In 1999, we met for the first time with the African delegations, a longstanding goal. There were also meetings with Secretariat officials such as Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Sergio Vieira de Mello and delegates outside the Council such as Ambassador Paolo Fulci of Italy, President of the Economic and Social Council.
In cooperation with Ambassador Robert Fowler of Canada, GPF organized a special meeting with the newly-elected members of the Council and additionally we organized a reception in December for Working Group members and Council delegations. There were three meetings with visiting NGO leaders, who presented information of special interest to Working Group members. Altogether GPF organized forty-five meetings as part of the Security Council dialogue process in 1999 – nearly one every week.
During 1999, GPF also stepped up its informal contacts with delegations. These included informal meetings, lunches and other contacts. NGO contacts broadened to include not only the ambassadors but also the other members of delegations working on Council affairs. The opportunity of Director Jim Paul to attend many of the monthly receptions of the (rotating) Council presidents was an especially important new opportunity of this kind.
Policy Initiatives
GPF and its NGO partners took many policy initiatives with Council members during the year, sometimes in the framework of the NGO Working Group and sometimes in smaller ad hoc coalitions.
Angola: In January, Charmian Gooch, Director of the London-based NGO Global Witness, came to New York to present a new report on the diamond trade and its role in financing the bloody Angola civil war. At that time, few at the United Nations had seriously considered the issue and the Angola sanctions committee of the Council was nearly defunct. GPF was able to put Gooch in touch with key delegations and to help her get an immediate hearing by the sanctions committee. GPF and a number of NGO partners then urged Council members to take meaningful action.
Fortunately, Ambassador Fowler of Canada had just joined the Council and was named chairman of the Angola sanctions committee. Fowler decided to make the Angola conflict a personal priority and he set out to enforce the Council's ban on rebel diamond sales. With the threat of an NGO diamond-boycott hanging over the diamond industry, action at last began in earnest. Throughout the year, thanks to leadership from Fowler, constant work on the NGO side and a growing consensus in the Council, embargo enforcement grew ever-tighter. By mid-fall, the rebels had been driven out of most of their major strongholds. One of Africa's worst conflicts had moved substantially towards resolution.
Sanctions Policy: GPF continued its widely-respected work on general sanctions policy. Authors of a major new book on sanctions sent part of the manuscript for our comments. We carried out our own independent research and web-based publication. We took part in two private meetings on sanctions with leading experts and Council delegations, held at the Canadian and Austrian Missions.
Iraq: Iraq sanctions continued to be a major preoccupation at GPF, in light of their negative humanitarian effects. In March we organized a large public meeting to hear Denis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary General and UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq. Later in the year, we began active conversations on more vigorous work in this area with NGO partners including Save the Children UK, Oxfam, Human Rights Watch and the Mennonite UN Office.
Kosovo: The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, following a growing civil conflict in Kosovo, set off a deep crisis for the UN and the Security Council, beginning in late March. GPF helped to keep the public informed through its web site and also through a number of media appearances, including a long television interview on Fox News Network. We argued that the international legal order requires Council agreement in a case such as Kosovo. We also predicted that the NATO action would not result in the permanent weakening of the Council (as many feared). Instead, we thought it would result in a swing back to the UN, by proving to the Europeans and even to the United States the problems of unilateral action outside the UN. Fortunately, our analysis proved correct and by September the Security Council stepped up its activities in a number of key crisis areas in Asia and Africa. In Kosovo itself, a UN civilian presence proved indispensable to the settlement.
East Timor: The crisis in East Timor became another focus of our broadening security-related activities. GPF had long anticipated this crisis and had posted substantial materials on the issue on our web site. We organized a special briefing for NGOs by Ambassador Antonio Monteiro of Portugal in the spring. And we urged Council members to take more vigorous action to support the elections and to protect the civilian population. The Council proved agonizingly slow to act, but in the end, it assumed a strong role, under the leadership of Ambassador Peter van Walsum of the Netherlands, Council President during the month of September, as the crisis entered its most serious phase.
Council Transparency: GPF also worked actively to increase the transparency of the Security Council, because the Council had been meeting almost exclusively behind closed doors. GPF and its NGO partners joined many delegations in pressing for more open Council meetings. We also urged Council members to post Council-related information on their web sites and we pressed for access of NGOs and others to the public gallery in the Council chamber. During the year there was substantial progress in this area. Beginning with the Dutch presidency in September, the Council increased steadily the number of its public meetings, including meetings on special "thematic" issues. Delegations made more use of their web sites. And the Council undertook a discussion of an entirely new set of meeting formats. All this helped considerably to make an otherwise secretive institution more open to public accountability.
Public Information
Throughout the year, GPF built its web-based information on the Security Council, including materials about the Council's meetings, statements, procedures, elections and other issues. Complementing our world-class section on Council-imposed sanctions, we developed a new and unique section on UN peacekeeping. We also posted a large amount of information on the major security crises.
In addition to the web site, GPF provided a number of public lectures, media interviews and other outreach relating to the Security Council and its work. Among other things, GPF Director Jim Paul was a keynote speaker at two events in Canada in January, organized in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry, discussing Canada's priorities as a newly-elected Council member.
Staff Support
In addition to Director Jim Paul, a number of people at GPF assumed key responsibilities on Security Council matters during the year. In particular, Giji Giya of Australia, Holger Osterrieder and Christian Kaufholz of Germany and Victoria Clarke of the United States provided outstanding work coordinating general staff work on the Council. Christian developed many of the new materials on Peacekeeping, while Yuko Suzuki continued to do excellent work as the sanctions policy coordinator.
Working Group Members in 1999
Mia Adjali
Director
United Methodist Office for the UN
John Beaven
UN Representative
Save the Children, UK
Peter Davies
UN Representative
Oxfam International
Diane Dilloon-Ridgley
Executive Director
WEDO
Catherine Dumait-Harper
UN Representative
Médecins Sans Frontií¨res
Cathy Fitzpatrick
Executive Director
International League of Human Rights
Dennis Frado
Director
Lutheran Office for World Community
Felice Gaer
UN Representative
Jacob Blaustein Institute for Human Rights
Stefanie Grant
Program Director
Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights
Felicity Hill
UN Representative
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
David Malone
President
International Peace Academy
Pamela Kraft
Executive Director
Tribal Link Foundation
Jeffrey Laurenti
Executive Director, Policy Studies
UNA-USA
Gail Lerner
UN Representative
CCIA/World Council of Churches
Iain Levine
UN Representative
Amnesty International
Stephen Marks
UN Representative
International Service for Human Rights
&
Director, UN Studies Program
Columbia University
Patricia Mische
President
Global Education Associates
Vernon Nichols
President
NGO Committee on Disarmament
William Pace
Executive Director
World Federalist Movement
&
Convenor
NGO Coalition on the International Criminal Court
Jack Patterson
Director
Quaker UN Office
James Paul
Executive Director
Global Policy Forum
Shazia Rafi
Director General
Parliamentarians for Global Action
John Rempel
UN Representative
Mennonite Central Committee
Michael Renner
Senior Researcher
Worldwatch Institute
Kathleen Todd
Director, World Community Office
Church World Service
Sandra Tully
UN Liasion
CARE
Anne Walker
Executive Director
International Women's Tribune Center
Alyn Ware
Executive Director
Lawyers' Committee for Nuclear Policy
Lucy Webster
Executive Director
ECAAR
Cora Weiss
Vice President
International Peace Bureau
&
International Representative
Peace Action
Joanna Weschler
UN Representative
Human Rights Watch
Global Policy Forum is supported primarily by contributions from generous individuals who join as members. GPF also receives grants from foundations and partner institutions. GPF is incorporated in the State of New York, registered as a charitable organization and recognized by the US Internal Revenue Service as a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the revenue code.
